“Fellows,” he said, in a husky voice, “Wade and Birdie Pell have told me that you believe that I planted that Latin examination paper in Jeff Thatcher’s book and left the book where it would be found and turned in so that he would be blamed for dishonesty and barred from the team. I want to tell you all that I do not know any more about the whole thing than you do, and that’s the honest truth. I want you to believe it is the truth, too. It makes me mighty unhappy to know that you can all think me capable of such an act, but it makes me realize, too, that I have probably been a cheap, rotten sort of a skate for some time. I want you all to overlook that and give me another chance to be a regular fellow. I tell you I never stooped to anything as low as the deed you are accusing me of, and if you do not believe me I will do anything that you fellows say to—”
Gould did not finish his sentence. Out of the dark came the sound of feet running up the graveled drive, and presently a figure burst upon the scene. It was Jeff Thatcher, hatless and out of breath.
“Good, I hoped I’d find you all here. Fellows, it’s a mistake, thank goodness. Ollie Simms, the janitor, is responsible for the whole business. Here’s how it all happened. He has just been over to Dr. Livingston’s office and explained, and Dr. Livingston called me in to let me know all about it. Seems Ollie found the examination paper on the path across the campus while he was on the way over to the gym., and on the basement steps he found my Cæsar, where I must have lost it out of my coat pocket. He shoved the paper into the book and intended to bring them over to the office. But he got busy with something else and he laid the book on the gym. steps and forgot about it. Little Jimmy Wild, a sub-freshman, found it and turned it in to the office. So there is the solution of the whole business and I am exonerated. And now, what I want to do is to apologize to Gould here for the ugly thoughts I have had about him and the ugly deeds I have believed him capable of.”
Jeff stepped up the steps and extended his hand to Gould and his former enemy gripped it with tears in his eyes.
“Thanks, Jeff,” he stammered, “I must have been carrying myself like a mucker these last few months to make you believe I could be capable of such a deed. I want to apologize for that and I want to apologize for many other things too. That basketball foul last winter, for instance. I lied then, Jeff. That was a mucker’s trick that I have regretted ever since. I’m going to be a regular fellow after this or I’m going to quit Pennington.”
Buck Hart and Wade Grenville stepped up followed by the others.
“We, too, want to apologize, Gould. We are blamed sorry, but, honestly, you have laid yourself open to it with your lax ways, your smoking, your egotism and some of the shady stunts you have pulled in the past. But we are all willing to let that stuff be far in the past. We are for you, Gould, and little Birdie Pell here, too.”
“Fellows,” said Gould, “Birdie Pell is about the best chum a fellow could have. He’s stuck to me through a lot of what must have been to him discouraging situations and he has always tried to make me see how rotten I have been, but I guess I have been such an infernal egotist that I have not been willing to pay much attention to him. He’s my cousin, fellows, and a dandy kid. But even his relationship did not stand in the way of his throwing me down to-night when he thought I had stooped to such a low trick as I was accused of.”
“Fellows,” said Wade Grenville, “we’ve been misjudging these two chaps a heap, and I guess I’m a lot responsible for some of the unpleasant feelings we have all held against them. I propose a yell for both of them.”
The “rahs” were given with enthusiasm and echoed across the campus with such feeling that presently heads were appearing at various windows.